Health ministry issues guidelines to prevent Zika outbreak

NEW DELHI: The health ministry has issued detailed guidelines to prevent an outbreak of the fast-spreading Zika virus in the country. Zika, which causes rashes, fever, joint pain and is linked to birth defects, has rapidly spread across Latin America. The intensified efforts of the government follow the World Health Organization ( WHO) declaring Zika an international public health emergency on Monday.

The ministry has also issued separate guidelines for integrated vector management to control the spread of the disease through mosquito bites. The aedes mosquito, known to be a carrier for the virus, is the same breed that has caused dengue and chikungunya outbreaks in the country.

A key element of the government’s strategy on the Zika virus disease includes an advisory for travellers to the affected countries. Identified international airports and ports will follow steps such as displaying information on the disease and having quarantine or isolation facilities, according to the guidelines. International airlines will be instructed to implement steps such as appropriate vector control measures with assistance from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, the main agency in charge of this.

The guidelines advise against nonessential travel to affected countries, especially for pregnant women. It also urges travellers with fever to report to their nearest health facility within two weeks of return from an affected country.

The guidelines emphasised a community-based strategy for surveillance using the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). “IDSP, through its community and hospital based data gathering mechanism, would track clustering of acute febrile illness and seek primary case, if any, among those who travelled to areas with ongoing transmission in the two weeks preceding the onset of the illness,” according to the guidelines.

IDSP would also be tasked with looking for cluster cases of microcephaly, where newborns have abnormally small heads, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), where the immune system attacks part of the nervous system.

While the virus is suspected to cause microcephaly and GBS, no scientific proof has been found to confirm the suspicion.The separate guidelines to control the country’s aedes mosquito population suggest steps like chemical control measures in permanent water storage facilities, improving water supply and mosquito-proofing overhead tanks, cisterns, underground reservoirs and houses to reduce breeding grounds. The guidelines also suggest weekly checks for aedes larval habitats in hospitals, schools, colleges, offices and other institutions.